I had a really tough time trying to tether my Android-based LG Optimus L5 mobile device, and additionally use it as a portable hotspot. The basic idea was to make it possible to access it via the Ubuntu 12.04.2 installed on my laptop; I run Kubuntu desktop environment on it by the way, and that kind of made it a lot harder… However, since I started using WICD [1] –all my problems are pretty much gone now 🙂

Installing WICD

Installing [1] WICD is easy and straight forward; just ensure the latest version of NetworkManager is installed, then install WICD, and finally uninstall NetworkManager. Incidentally, the instructions for Unity are the same, except for the packages that need to be installed/uninstalled.